1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle electric fan motor, and more particularly to a vehicle electric fan motor with universal mount, which is adapted to mount to an electric fan with either three-hole or four-hole structure so as to securely mount the fan motor to the electric fan while being cost effective.
2. Description of Related Arts
A cooling system for vehicle generally comprises an electric fan and fan motor driving the electric fan to operate such that the electric fan generates a flow of fresh air for cooling the engine of the vehicle.
A conventional fan motor comprises a motor housing having a front casing and a rear cover sealedly covering to the front casing, a motor assembly received in the motor housing and a mounting unit securely mounted the motor housing to the electric fan, wherein a driving shaft is extended from the motor assembly to couple with the electric fan through the front casing of the motor housing to drive the electric fan to rotate.
Accordingly, there are two types of electric fan, which are three-hole structural electric fan and four-hole structural electric fan. The three-hole structural electric fan contains three mounting holes for the fan motor mounting thereto. The mounting unit comprises three hole-planes integrally and outwardly extended from the rear cover of the motor housing to align with the three mounting holes of the electric fan respectively such that a plurality of mounting elements, such as screws, are securely affixed the motor housing to the electric fan through the mounting holes and the hole-planes. Likewise, the four-hole structural electric fan contains four mounting holes for the fan motor mounting thereto. The mounting unit comprises four hole-planes integrally and outwardly extended from the rear cover of the motor housing to align with the four mounting holes of the electric fan respectively such that the mounting elements are securely affixed the motor housing to the electric fan through the mounting holes and the hole-planes.
However, such electric fan has several drawbacks. When one of the electric fan and the fan motor must be replaced due to the malfunction thereof, the machinist must find the corresponding parts to match the electric fan with the fan motor. In other words, if the three-hole structural electric fan is malfunctioned, a new three-hole structural electric fan is required to be substituted in order to match with the three-hole mounting unit of the fan motor. Also, the machinist may merely keep both three-hole fan motor and four-hole fan motor in stock because the three-hole fan motor only fits for the three-hole structural electric fan and the four-hole fan motor only fits for the four-hole structural electric fan. In other words, they are unique and are not interchangeably use.
Furthermore, due to the vibration of the electric fan, one of the hole-planes may easily be broken through the respective mounting element. Since the hole-plane is integrally extended from the rear cover of the motor housing, the broken hole-plane may cause the fan motor detaching from the electric fan. In other words, one of the hole-planes is broken, the rear cover may disengage with the front casing that the motor assembly will expose to outside and the driving shaft may misalign with the electric fan as well. Therefore, the tiny hole-plane becomes the essential component of the cooling system of the vehicle that the broken hole-plane may cause the entire cooling system malfunctioning.